Strides of Slytherin
by Thauro91
Summary: An outsider has foreseen Voldemort's downfall and is now forced to play his hand…For Harry and whom he knows, this means changes... Even of time. (Genres: Fantasy and Romance)


_**Rated: T (Violence, Infrequent themes)**_

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_**Chapter 1**_

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_Harry…_

The soft voice was enough to gently rouse harry to wake from his quiet slumber. As he opened both his eyes slowly, he felt rather weak all of a sudden and for some strange reason could taste faint salt in the air of open outdoors.

This was strange, Harry thought, for he didn't recall leaving any windows open the night before he fell asleep. When he lifted his upper body and reached beside him to find his glasses near bedside, he almost jumped with surprise.

His hands had felt the softness of grass.

As he tried to bring his blurry vision back into focus he began to faintly make out his surroundings, he was lying on a soft hill a few hundred meters away from the Quidditch stadium. Before him was a small pond where he could hear the quiet croaks of frogs and the faint quivers under the ground from snoring mandrakes.

Feeling a little light headed, he made his way to his feet, his head began to throb with tremendous force. Harry's memory felt blank. He barely knew where he was or why he was here. Fortunately, as he looked out into the distance, he did recognize the castle which had long filled within him a strong sense of home.

For some reason he found himself picturing it in shattered remains, despite knowing Hogwarts and its castle were impenetrable. With a light shake of his head, he adjusted his glasses before his eyes after finding them lying on the grass nearby and made his way to the great hall smelling the faint aromatic scents of a winter supper.

* * *

Once finally inside, he looked around the hall for Ron and Hermione. Though Hermione was nowhere in sight, he did manage to find Ron seated near the middle of the table having a rowdy chat about girls with Dean, Neville and Shamus rather obnoxiously.

A smile spread across Harry's cheeks, there was an even stronger sense of familiarity upon seeing Ron's joyful laughter. He made his way quickly over and took a seat beside Ron with a smile fired at the four familiar faces around him.

Strangely, they did not return the same warmth in their expressions.

"What are you playing at?" Ron asked with a look of deep contempt.

"Hm? What are you talking about Ron?" Harry asked, confused by the outburst of the rather hostile inquisition.

"Look, we aren't looking to start trouble, so I'd suggest you went your way," Shamus stated coldly.

"Trouble? What are you guys talking about?" Harry said as he smiled faintly while reaching for a plate. When the dish he was aiming to take was snatched away before Harry could claim it, he felt his smile suddenly disappear noticed the absence of a jesting atmosphere.

Soon enough the entire table was looking in his direction. Among the familiar faces who stared silently with looks of confusion or menace, one seemed to be less harsh than the others and soothed Harry's nerves, Ginny Weasley's.

Without realizing, Harry smiled softly her way when all of a sudden he felt his collar tightly grabbed with great force.

"Oi! Keep your eyes of my sister you leech!"

"Wha... Ron, what's the matter with you?" Harry asked as he tried to break free of his brutishly strong grip.

"What's wrong with me? Are you itching to go, or what? And how about stop calling me by my first name as if I'm your friend. Just who the hell are you anyway?" Ron spat in frustrated agitation.

"Alright, this really isn't funny anymore guys. What's the problem with all of you?" Harry said standing up and taking a step back from the table.

"You think we're the ones playing the joke? You serious?" Suddenly a few of the on lookers began laughing, in fact nearly the entire hall's attention was now on Harry and the students surrounding him.

Ron pushed Harry back as he with surprising force as he too got up from the table. Smiling as he shook his head mockingly turning to some of the surrounding students who shot him back an equally riddled grin.

"Got a few screws loose or what? You ask us 'what's the problem'? While you, a Slytherin, confidently takes a seat at the Gryffindor table like you're our best mate or something. I thought your lot hated our guts."

Harry's heart sank. With almost disbelief he stared into Ron's eyes. After a short silence Ron's smile faded and he almost looked bored with the charade he believed Harry to be playing. Harry looked down at his robes and to his shock he did see green and the shielded crest behind a serpent resembling design.

Harry was at a loss for words, he couldn't open his mouth at all or even think of what next to say. He found himself turn to Ginny for some reason, more so out of compulsion than a need for aid.

"Hey! Why you keep looking towards her anyway?" Ron asked with even more of a threatening demeanor in his tone this time.

Suddenly a female voice called out from behind the group.

"There you are!" A girl with long blonde hair a rich golden like Malfoy's reached all the way to her slim waist being slightly revealed under open Slytherin robes. With piercing emerald eyes, she stared disappointingly at Harry with her arms crossed in almost a strictly maternal fashion.

"I was meant to take you to the nurse's after you got hit by that confusion jinx during defense against the dark arts class. Come with me already, and don't go running off this time!" Without any warning she lead Harry by taking firm hold of one arm and forcefully dragged him towards the great hall's exit.

Suddenly the glares on Harry eased with a sense of understanding as he was escorted out of the room. Even Harry had witnessed people acting strange after suffering a bad hit at D.A.D.A class but he knew he was not under the influence of any spell.

Once the unfamiliar yet beautiful girl around his own age had lead him outside, she pushed him towards the edge of the wall away from the gaze of any onlookers within the hall. She spoke in angry whispers while Harry rubbed his back from the sheer force this girl had pushed him.

"What do you think you're doing?" She snapped angrily.

Harry didn't know what exactly he was being asked. "What?" He replied with a dumbfound expression. Truth was he had more questions for her than she did for him.

"You can't start trouble like that! Listen I might have got you out of a mess this time but I won't do it again! You're the third year student in my class right? You're usually so quiet, what made you go and do something crazy like this? And what was your name again? Henry Potts or something?"

Harry had never met someone who could so easily forget his name. It made him smile warmly from the refreshing and well received error. The girl before him raised one eye brow seriously wondering whether Harry had in fact _truly _been hit by a more powerful jinx than previously imagined.

"It's Harry Potter. By the way, what's your name?"

"Oh please, like you don't know my name!" She grinned as she punched Harry on the shoulder gently. "If that was your attempt to flirt, you _desperately_ need practice! Well I'm off now. Promise you'll stop stirring up trouble!" She said sternly. "I'm not bailing you out a second time."

Harry nodded and said nothing. For some reason he remembered being requested not to start trouble many times before but never being able to uphold promises made after such requests.

"Oh and I suggest you go straight to the common room. People will give you a hard time if they don't suspect you're at the nurse's office right now." the girl said as she tucked

"But..." Harry placed two hands on his stomach.

"Still hungry?" She asked with a skeptical look.

Harry gave a slightly guilty nod.

A faint laugh surfaced, which she quickly bit back so as not to give Harry the satisfaction of thinking himself amusing. "_Fine_. Don't worry, I'll bring you up something and give it to you in the Slytherin common room. Just get going already!" She pushed him from the back towards another ground floor corridor before disappearing into the great hall.

Harry, completely lost as to how to get inside the Slytherin common room just decided to follow an intricate line of corridors seeming more and more like the dungeons the further he went.

Soon enough, he stumbled across nothing but a large stone wall. A dead end lay before him.

"Hm, what now?" Harry thought to himself as he tightly gripped a handful of his hair in frustration.

At that moment in time, as Harry spun around to contemplate trying a different route, he felt an icy chill travel down his spine. Shuddering from the unfamiliar unsettling presence of thinning air he felt something was wrong. As he looked at the ground before a corner in the corridor just up ahead, he noticed an icy frost forming over the tiles, traveling towards him.

With an uncontrollable shortage of breath, Harry began to grip his chest as he wheezed for air which now felt to be freezing his lungs solid.

Finally it emerged.

From around the corner came a familiar yet never before seen ominous black cloth covering the unsightly figure of a wandering wisp. What was this horrendous creature that gazed at Harry without its eyes, but instead with its thirst for the warmth of flesh?

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-_Earlier that night, on an uncharted landscape_-

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"My lord, will it work?" A soft feminine voice questioned from a slim figured woman who nervously pulled back her long silk like Burgundy hair.

"I do not know," A deep authoritative voice calmly replied. "Oh, and Reizma…" the long raven haired man, cloaked in rich dark green robes, continued, "…I've told you not to call me that."

"Of course, forgive me… My love." The woman seemed to say those words shyly. The man before her shared a soft smile while placing his firm hand gently over her cheek.

"Are you sure you wish to do this?" Reizma pleaded, "I do not wish to risk losing you." The woman reconsidered their progress as she tightly held onto his hand with both of hers.

"We have no other choice. Voldermort will not meet his goals. He will not meet the forgotten expectations of my father it seems."

"Are you certain the warlock will fail? Riddle was a prodigy child, destined for-"

"-Only death… It would seem." The cloaked man finished Reizma's words himself. "I have foreseen it. Within five years he will face his demise. I am left with only one choice to redirect the flow of causality."

"But why act beside Voldermort? You are…" Reizma silenced herself from the glare she felt directed her way.

"Merely his equal. You forget, Reizma, that I am a bastard son before I am an heir of Slytherin. Had you forgotten why my father banished me in the first place?"

"I-I'm sorry, please don't revisit such cruel memories… I knew not my place, forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive Reizma. Come, it is time."

As the two walked in silence over the ruby like crystal shards shattered by the lakeside, the moonlit night and fresh air above them called the man's name through whispers within the wind.

_Azazel_

"You know," Azazel whispered quietly to Reizma as he pointed his wand towards the serene night sky. "Despite everything he did wrong, Voldermort's direct influence did succeed in one consequence I could never have thought possible... The early death of Albus Dumbledore. How interesting it shall be to stand by his side as an equal. What wonders we will achieve… What darkness we will cleanse this plagued world with."

Finally taking a deep breath, the seemingly youthful man lowered his cloak's hood and gazed with his youthful face at the stars above. Inhaling with closed eyes he prepared to roar a curse, risked only once before nearly a thousand years ago.

"_Ultima-Solus Amnesius__**!"**_

At the top of his lungs the almighty warlock lit up the night sky with a shower of snow white luminosity. A cloud with a toxic aura began to ominously spread to cover the stars.

Trembling, the man collapsed to his knees as his crimson red eyes began to lose their initial color.

Gasping heavily with all of his strength gone, blood began to trickle from his lips.

"Azazel! Azazel, speak to me! Are you alright?" Reizma cried out frantically.

"I'm alive, and that is better than I hoped... Tell me, did it work?" Asked Azazel.

"I-I can't… I'm too afraid to look." His youthful partner stated, trembling in fear.

"Now is not the time for fear!" Azazel shouted with what little strength he had, startling Reizma as he turned her gaze towards him by her throat.

With hesitance, Reizma opened her eyes to look into her master's. She sighed with immense relief.

"You've done it! You're eyes have turned a murky grey... You will live." She said beginning to whimper as tears of joy rolled down her cheeks while she rested Azazel's back onto her lap.

Looking up at his life-long partner, Azazel whispered to his wife some quiet words.

"To be alive for a thousand years... How you've suffered my dear." Azazel dried a tear from her soft rosy cheek. 'Despite the corrosion of time, not even the millennia could corrode this woman's beauty,' he thought to himself fondly while looking into his beloved's sky blue eyes.

A terrifyingly powerful witch herself, Reizma was able to read her husband's unspoken thoughts; with a smile she whispered to herself as she watched his weakened state fall into deep slumber.

"To remain with you, I would bare one thousand more."

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_It is rumoured that the bastard son of Salazar Slytherin once crafted sorcery that the entire world could fall victim to. He had sworn, if it were not he who broke from the forbidden curse, then he would break the order of the world around him. _

_Despite his failed attempt to become the wizard that shaped his own future nearly a millennium ago, today, he had finally succeeded. _

_Finally, after a thousand years of laying dormant, he had mastered the curse powerful enough to bring change to his world._

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**_-End Chapter 1-_**

**A.N**: Please feel free to share some thoughts or criticisms on this W.I.P. If it draws even a little interest, I'll be more than happy to continue working on it in the near future!

Kind Regards

Thauro91.


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